1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the manufacture of matches.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Friction matches conventionally comprise a match stem or splint impregnated or coated with a fuel, e.g. paraffin wax and carrying a head formed from a match head composition which is ignitable by striking on a suitable surface.
Match splints have to meet a number of different requirements in order to be commercially acceptable. For example, they have to be sufficiently rigid to permit the match to be struck whilst holding the match some way away from the match head, they have to have a degree of toughness so that they do not break easily, they have to have sufficient porosity to absorb and retain the wax or other fuel which is used to fuel the flame, and moreover a porosity which permits the fuel to migrate through the pores during the burning process to fuel the flame, but without allowing droplets of fuel to drop from the burning match, and they must also preserve a large measure of their strength and toughness throughout the burning process so that hot or possibly still burning embers do not break or drop off.
Although non-wooden splints have been used and are used extensively in certain special applications, e.g. strips of card, particularly in the so-called book matches, and wax impregnated paper splints, and although many proposals have been made for synthetic or non-wooden splints, wooden splints are still extensively used in the match industry because of their unique combination of rigidity, toughness and porosity. Economic pressures in the timber industry are, however, creating a demand for a cheap substitute for the wooden match splint, a demand which has not so far satisfactorily been met by existing proposals for synthetic or substitute wooden splints.
The various proposals for synthetic or substitute wooden match splints include:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,495,575, 2,647,048 and 3,185,552 all of which disclose paper or board splints stiffened by impregnation with resinous or plastics materials of various kinds;
Japanese Patent Publications Nos. 74-21 042, 74-21 043 and 74-21 044 which disclose plastics match splints comprising a plastics binder in combination with various fillers;
Japanese Patent Publications Nos. 73-38 346 and 74-59 157 which disclose matchsticks formed from a moulded cellulose material;
U.K. Pat. No. 862,932 which discloses match splints composed of an extruded combustible mixture of finely divided vegetable material e.g. paper pulp, wood pulp, sawdust with a synthetic material such as cellulose acetate, with or without additional agglutinants, impregnating agents and fillers; and
U.K. Pat. No. 882,713 which discloses match splints composed of an outer combustible shell and an inner at least partly combustible core, the shell and the core both being formed from combustible materials such as wood pulp, paper, sawdust, if necessary with an agglutinant such as starch or glue which binds the particulate material together to form a substantially rigid, self-supporting structure.